Damaged
by ChoCedric
Summary: A year apart and a raging war has changed them both; they're not the same people they used to be. Something is broken between them now, something which they're not sure they can fix. Harry and Ginny, post-battle.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Author's Note: This is my third version of Harry and Ginny's reunion after the war which I've posted in the last few days. This is version three of four which I am going to write. The first version is called The Turbulent Reunion, which has a lot of anger in it but eventually they work things out. The second one, The Sweetest Reunion, has tenderness and love in it. This one, you will see. And the last one which I will post tomorrow, you will also see, if you want to read it. My reason for writing four versions is the fact that I see their reunion going all of these ways. If you read all of them, let me know which way you personally think it would go.

Side note: Bits of this may sound the same as The Turbulent Reunion, but believe me, this ends very differently.

Damaged

By: ChoCedric

It was over. Well and truly over. As Harry made his way out of Dumbledore's office, exhaustion overwhelmed him. He was also full of grief and guilt following all the casualties that had taken place in the past few hours. His brush with death also left him feeling as though everything was surreal.

He'd told Ron and Hermione he needed some time alone to think, to go over everything in his mind. He still couldn't wholly believe that Voldemort, the darkest wizard there had been in a century, was really dead, was really no more, that he wouldn't find some other way of returning. Scenes of lifeless eyes flitted through his head, of all the destruction Voldemort had caused. It was hard to comprehend it was over after two little words and once again the same curse rebounding on the caster.

When he arrived at the Gryffindor common room, a flood of memories assaulted him. He could remember being here as a first year, sitting in the squashy armchairs and admiring the world around him. After spending ten years locked up in a cupboard and being told again and again that he was nothing more than a freak and a burden, it was quite astounding to be in a world where he was adored and worshipped for something he couldn't even remember. He had come to realize, however, that the wizarding world was very fickle; they could admire you one moment and turn on you in the next. He was just very pleased that he had made such good friends in Ron and Hermione. Though they had had their fights and bad times, they had always come through for him in the end.

He sat down in one of the said squashy armchairs and pondered the events of the past year. He had been so frustrated during the course of it, when he felt that he, Ron, and Hermione weren't getting anywhere when it came to finding the Horcruxes. He could remember the deep anger from Ron and the helplessness from Hermione, and the longing he'd felt when he'd thought of the Burrow and Hogwarts.

When he thought of all the people who had been lost, the most prominent people in his mind came back to him. The lifeless face of Fred Weasley, still wearing a slight smile, overwhelmed him, and he felt a great wrench of sadness. Fred had been like his brother, and he now couldn't thank him for all the joy and laughter he'd brought into his life. He thought of the last time he'd seen George; the remaining Weasley twin had been wearing a distraught look and he'd been kneeling by Fred's head, looking at him in horror and disbelief, in total denial.

Next to hit him were Remus and Tonks. Remus, the last Marauder and the final link to his parents, was gone too, as was his beautiful wife Tonks. He felt his stomach clench as he thought of Teddy Lupin, a war orphan just like he was. He would never know the love of parents, although he wouldn't have a horrible childhood like Harry himself had done. He vowed to himself that over the next few days, he would meet little Teddy, apologize to Andromeda for her losses, and tell her he would be honored to be part of her grandson's life.

There was one face, though, that kept entering his mind even through the images of the dead, one face that hadn't lost its light of life. She was the one person he'd thought about all year, the one person he'd been hoping to get back to. She was the reason he'd kept fighting, the only reason he'd wanted to stay alive at times. She was like a ray of sunshine, his rainbow. Her red hair was the color of his dreams, her shining smile warmed his spirits and made him feel whole again when everything had seemed so hopeless.

At that moment, the portrait hole opened, and in walked the very person harry had been hoping to see. His emerald eyes blazed with need and desperation, and his hands grew clammy and his heart started to race. He'd been near her in the Room of Requirement, and he'd wanted so badly to take her into his arms, keep her safe, and never let her go. At the moment Voldemort had cast the Avada Kedavra at him, her face was imprinted on his mind, and he had felt a crushing sadness that he would never see her again. So this vision of her, to him, even with her face bloodied and streaked with dirt and tears, was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life.

However, Ginny didn't come running over to him like he expected her to. Instead, she sat down in an armchair the farthest away from him that she possibly could. Harry was surprised; earlier it had seemed as though she wanted to embrace him just as fiercely as he'd wanted to hold her. He looked at her face for a moment, and she was wearing a closed expression. The only way to tell that she was in emotional pain was in her eyes. They were hollow and were void of their sparkle, the mischief they usually bore was gone, replaced by such loneliness and turmoil that Harry wanted to just wave his wand and take it all away. But unfortunately, life didn't work like that.

The two stared into each other's eyes for a while, and finally, not being able to take the silence anymore, Harry asked tentatively, "Ginny? What's wrong?"

But Ginny didn't respond. She continued to stare at him, and so many emotions were flitting through her eyes that it was almost impossible to catch them all. But he was dismayed to see that the most prevalent one was anger mixed with complete and utter betrayal.

:Gin, please talk to me," Harry begged. "What is it? What did I do?"

He knew he'd said the wrong thing when Ginny got up extremely fast from her armchair. She marched over to him, standing right in front of where he was sitting. "You want to know what you did?" she asked in a low, dangerous voice. "Try to figure it out, Harry. You can't be that stupid."

Harry was flabbergasted by her tone and her words. Never had he seen his Ginny like this. He wanted so desperately to fix things, to get things back to how they had been before this damn war had separated them. "Please tell me," he pleaded, his own green eyes becoming haunted with grief and guilt.

"You know what?" Ginny suddenly screamed, flailing her arms about. "I'm sick of this, all of it! I'm sick of you treating me like a little girl, as if I'm still eleven and fragile and dying in the Chamber of Secrets!"

"Wha ..." Harry gasped, his mouth hanging open.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Potter," Ginny spat. "My entire family, my ENTIRE DAMN FAMILY, were fighting out there, were fighting for what they believed in, and you made me stay in the Room of Requirement like I'm some kind of pathetic child! You say you love me but you've got a damn poor way of showing it if you won't even let me be involved in a fight that I wholeheartedly wanted to take part in! I wanted Voldemort destroyed as much as you did, and you wouldn't let me! The only reason you let me out was because you needed the room!"

"Ginny, I wanted you to be safe!" Harry exclaimed. Merlin, he thought she'd understood that!

"Bollocks!" Ginny shouted. :You just didn't want me in your way so you wouldn't have to do the courteous thing and give me an explanation! Dammit!" she shrieked, angry tears filling her eyes, though she did her best to blink them back. "Then you went and died, without even saying goodbye! You could talk to Neville freaking Longbottom, but not to me! You promised you'd never leave me, but then you went out alone into the forest, you noble, self-sacrificing PRAT!"

And then the most horrible thing that could happen, in Harry's opinion, happened. Ginny, his strong, brave Ginny burst into heart-wrenching sobs. "You died, Harry, dammit, you DIED!" she howled through her tears. "You left me!"

Harry was completely at a loss. Crying girls were not his specialty – he'd realized that two years ago when it came to Cho. How was he supposed to comfort Ginny, to tell her that he'd only gone out to die because it was the only way the war could end? "Ginny, I'm so sorry," he said, his voice breaking as he looked at her anguished face.

"If you were really sorry you'd have found some other way to destroy Voldemort instead of committing suicide!" Ginny yelled. "How do you think it felt for me, seeing you dead in Hagrid's arms?"

"Ginny, I didn't commit suicide, it was a sacrifice! And I never really died, I just pretended I did," Harry tried to tell her, a lump forming in his throat. "I had to let Voldemort think I was dead so ..."

"You think that matters? You went out there with the intent to really die, didn't you? You planned to leave us all, to let us suffer your loss! I can't believe you!" she exploded. "I thought you loved me!"

"Ginny, please!" Harry begged, getting off the armchair and attempting to put a hand on her shoulder.

But Ginny violently pushed his hand away. "Don't touch me!" she sobbed. "Why should you want to? You were planning to leave me, anyway!"

And with that, she ran up the girls' staircase and disappeared out of sight, leaving Harry feeling broken and completely hollow. Never had he thought his and Ginny's reunion would turn out like this. God, to see Ginny's tears ... it destroyed him. To think all that grief was caused by him! He'd had no idea his pretending to be dead would cause this. Yes, he'd heard her scream his name in desperation while Hagrid had been carrying him, but he thought Ginny would have been happy and relieved to see him alive rather than angry and betrayed.

Little was Ginny to know, though, that as she lay in her four-poster bed minutes later with the curtains drawn and a Silencing Charm up, crying her eyes out, that the boy who still captured her heart, despite all he had done and all the turmoil he'd put her through, was doing the exact same thing.

All was not well.


End file.
